Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

GEORGE SCHUTZ. Editor Theatre Housekeeping Now Includes Safeguarding of Your Patrons' Health IN THE PREVIOUS issue of Better Theatres, in a brief summary of the place of ozone generation in air-conditioning, we had occasion to say: "In view of the increasing public consciousness of places of public assembly as sources of illnesses caused by air-borne bacteria, the fact that ozone, in merely safe quantities, can destroy most, perhaps all, airborne germs, is of interest in measuring its practical value in theatre operation. Such measures, including use of really effective disinfectants that do not themselves create obnoxious odors, and immaculate housekeeping in general, may prove to be increasingly indicated by the attitudes of authorities as well as of the public." The peculiar significance of good housekeeping— that is, cleanliness, neatness — in theatre operation is well illustrated in the article in the present issue by Mr. Van Getson of the Balaban & Katz organization in Chicago. In the theatre business, cleanliness is merchandise. But today theatre housekeeping goes considerably beyond keeping a theatre immaculate in appearance. Its responsibilities have been extended to include protection of public health. In any epidemic, places of public assembly, whether the facts warrant it or not, are looked upon with suspicion. Even if the public health authorities do not act, the public does. In periods when illness seems widespread, more and more people stay away from places where many persons are in close contact with each other, where they come in contact with facilities used by hundreds of others. The public has become pretty well satisfied that theatres, in general, are no longer fire traps — instances of audiences calmly rising and filing out of a theatre when a fire has occurred have become the rule, rather than the exception. The public must think of the motion picture theatre as being comparably safe from infections and contagions. Actually, our theatres today do not figure in the safeguarding of public health any more than other places where people assemble indoors for two or three hours at a tir/ie, and less than some. In a recent letter to this publication, H. G. du Buy, bio-physicist of the U. S. Health Service, states, "Proof that a particular location is a source of infection is difficult to give because it is an indirect proof." He cited the spread of ringworm of the scalp in some communities. "The fungus causing this disease was recovered in some cases from theatre seats by using Wood's light [a Switzer Brothers black light lamp was used] and subsequent culture. The main source of the spread, however, was attributed to barber shops." It is enough for people to learn that theatres are possible sources of infection for some persons to fear them, and the authorities to take precautions which appear to give basis for such fear. The best defense is a good offense — doing the utmost to minimize infection and contagion within the theatre, and making such vigilance as obvious as possible in the appearance of all public areas, and in the clean, stimulating quality of the air throughout the entire interior. WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT? There are various means at hand today— produced partly in consequence of the increasing emphasis on protection rather than cure in safeguarding the public health — which can be used as effective weapons in this defense. Disinfectants are one, and they have been commonly in use in theatres for a long time. Too often, however, their use has been confined to toilet equipment, and there primarily for the purpose of counteracting — rather, overwhelming— foul odors. Some disinfectants, in fact, have scarcely more of an effect than that — to change a bad odor to one less obnoxious, at least to one that is not so unpleasantly suggestive as the natural one. The result has been the creation of a new odor that is just as suggestive, by implication, as the original. The objective should be no odor at all! Perhaps in years gone by — years in which theatres developed the para-crystal standard of cleanliness — it couldn't. But it can be today. A disinfectant is no deodorant, in the terms of theatre operation today, unless it destroys the odor, ends the putrefaction that causes it. And if it doesn't do that, it of course is not an effective disinfectant. It should sterilize, kill germs of practically all kinds, quickly. If it does that, there is no odor — unless it has one of its own. Its odor may not be definitely unpleasant to all people. But an odor of any kind,, foul or merely suggestive, is unnecessary. Disagreeable odors are not confined to toilet rooms. Enough perfumes have been sprayed in auditoriums to float the new U.S.S. Wisconsin. Some toilet rooms leak odors. People create unpleasant odors just by. breathing, by their bodies, their clothing. And an unpleasant odor, aside from being unpleasant, suggests dirt, and dirt, to people of our civilization, is associated with the idea of germs. It is, of course, a sound association. Render the auditorium reasonably free of the microscopic forms of life that cause disease and there is no 1 1